Mental Health

In the aftermath of a suicide

A few years ago, I was one of the first responders to a suspected suicide. We received the news through a disruption in a regular meeting: First a knock on the door, then friends whispering …...

Mental Health

My messed-up life … now a message of life

I have always been a sensitive girl. Even in primary school, the smallest actions and words of my friends would deeply affect me. So I pushed them away before they could push me away. I often needed...

Disabilities

My brother, our special gift

For 25 years, Jeremiah had a younger brother, Ezekiel, who suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Through his story, Jeremiah hopes to encourage families of children with disabilities. When my...

Mental Health

The prayer that saved my life

I wanted to commit suicide before I turned 18.  I was sick of life. I was just sick of everything. I had lived in a thick darkness for more than half my life, where my anxious and depressive...

Mental Health

I’ve learned to be okay with not being good enough

The dark, gaping hole of not-enoughness has been part of my narrative for as long as I can remember. As a child with a typically uninterested, uninvolved father, I used to strive to be the center of...

Mental Health

Twenty years on

During the 2018 World Cup, my darling wife Bernice reminded me that it has been 20 years since my struggle with clinical depression. The 1998 World Cup was in full swing then, played to the tunes of...

Mental Health

The psalm of my broken heart

Anxiety and depression. This article will contain pictures of pages from my journal, entries from earlier this year. I have journaled since I was a child. I journal not to capture a forever snapshot...

Health

My journey through psychotic depression

I was diagnosed with psychotic depression eight months after I became a Christian. As a young Christian then, it was a confusing and devastating season. The diagnosis came when I had just started...

Health

I was in primary three when cancer struck

My name is Fidelia. I’m 25 – and I’m a cancer survivor. I was an ordinary child growing up as a third-generation Christian. Grandma would bring me to Sunday School, which was where I...